


A Year in the Future

by Tamoline



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamoline/pseuds/Tamoline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate explores both the future that she's found herself in, and the people that she's sharing it with, over the course of a year.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Year in the Future

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to [Second Chances](http://archiveofourown.org/works/773224)

**The next day:**

Sweat drips down my back as I'm finally wheeled back into the room. I summon just enough energy to give Elizabeth a wave as Brannon wheels her off for her own exercises.

We've decided to take the sessions separately. Neither of us particularly wishes the other to see their humiliation.

It's almost enough to make a girl go for the easy option.

Almost, but not quite

I close my eyes for a moment, maybe two, and when I open them, Tia is there.

"Hi," she says.

"Good morning," I say. "I'm afraid you don't find me at my best." I contemplate her for a moment, then decide to bite the bullet. "Tia, if you don't mind, exactly what are you?"

She blinks. "What gave it away?"

"This and that." Little things, mostly, though, in hindsight, the way the Wraith Queen hadn't even acknowledged her was something of a big hint.

She looks down, then back up again. "I wasn't lying to you. I did say that everyone had their own secrets."

"I never said that you were lying to me."

She sighs. "I'm the city. Or at least the sentience attached to the systems."

Well, she had said that the city was alive, so it isn't as big a shock as it might have been.

"Were you around in my time?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "I only became aware later."

"Oh?" I have to ask. Because, really, this sounds like just the kind of project that some of the scientists I had known would have done.

She shakes her head, and twists her mouth. "It's a little complicated. When someone dies in Atlantis, their mind is backed up within the systems. Over time, if it isn't retrieved or stored somewhere else more permanently, the recording fades and starts fragmenting. The hypothesis," she says a little archly, "is that my consciousness is emergent from those parts."

Okay, *that* I hadn't been expecting. "Does this mean that there's a part of me in you?"

"There has been a lot amount of debate about that in certain quarters," she laughs, a little bitterly. "All I can say is - I don't have anyone else's memories. Just access to all the recordings."

"How do you feel about this?" I ask, automatically falling back into old habits.

She shrugs. "I am who I am. I can't be anyone else." She pauses for a second, before continuing. "Though I have always felt connected to both you and Dr Weir."

Oh, I think. Oh.

I'm not quite sure how to feel about that.

Not that my feelings are the most important at the moment, but...

"Do you have any particular reason for feeling this way?" I ask, and maybe I want to know the answer a little more than usual.

"Again, there are theories about this," Tia says, in the slightly harsh tones of someone who is more than a little sick of analysis.

"What do you think?"

She sighs and looks distant for a moment. "I like to think... I like to think that I have this connection with Dr Weir because she was with me for so long, deep in stasis within my depths. If I ever had any memories of the Ancients, they are long gone. So she is my first, the first person I was ever aware of."

"And me?"

She shrugs. "That's a little more irrational. The nearest I can come is imagining that the part of you that was within me helped me become self-aware."

I can't help feeling touched. "I would like to imagine that too," I tell her gently.

She smiles brightly. "I'm so glad we finally got to meet, after all these years."

What else can I say? "So am I," I tell her.

And as we sit, and chat of light subjects, I try to think exactly how I'm going to broach the subject to Elizabeth that *apparently* in a strange kind of way, we may have had a child together. And she is Atlantis.

 

**Two weeks in:**

There's a pulsing hum at my office door, disturbing me from the paper I'm currently reading.

It takes me a moment, still, to remember that this is the Atlantean equivalent of ringing the doorbell - using the Ancient gene to give a weak command to open the door, easily overridden by any occupant.

With a mental command, I blank the smart paper and look up.

I allow the door to open, revealing Ida.

"Good morning," she says, strolling forwards.

"Good morning, Ida," I say. "What can I do for you?"

She sits down on a chair. "Have you thought about what kind of upgrades you want to get, yet?"

"I'm taking it gently, so far. There's still so much to get used to."

Her face blanks for a moment, then reanimates as she focusses on my eyes intently. "I've always found the best way forward is to dive straight in."

Barring the wraith, Ida is probably the most alien person I've met yet. Half the time, she doesn't even appear to be present, and the other half her mood can change so quickly it almost gives me whiplash.

There is no doubting her intelligence, though.

The amount of things she is supposed to have discovered is incredible, even in my field.

And she makes the psychologist in me itch, wanting to know more about how she works.

How much of her is dysfunction, and how much of her is just a result of the processes she's been through?

"Maybe," I say in response. "But I prefer to try things at my own pace."

"That's the way most people around here think," she says, snorting. "And all of the scientists. Always acting as if they have all the time in the world to do whatever they want. No wonder I'm the only one who ever seems to get anything done."

"I thought the point was that they did," I say. "Have all the time in the world, I mean."

She stops suddenly, looking at me again. "I think she would have liked to meet you. Iteration 1, I mean. She'd have probably taken you to task, but she'd have liked to meet you."

"Iteration 1?" I ask.

She laughs, loudly, then stops. "Oh, I forgot how new you are to this place. You know how brain plasticity reduces as you age? Even the current anti-agathics don't stop it, just reduce it. It's why the big breakthrough, the brilliant discoveries are made by the young."

"Historically, it does seem to have been the case," I agree.

"Iteration 1 - the first Ida - was a brilliant psychologist. I imagine that you've already read some of her work. When she was young, she made her breakthroughs. And then she started to slow down, ossify. Just like everyone else around here. This wasn't acceptable. So she made a copy of her brain state, put it in permanent storage, then reset herself to the age of 13, just when we were starting to choose our path, at a point when we could start working our way to our most brilliant all over again."

She committed suicide, I think numbly. She destroyed the woman she was to create another child. "I see," I say.

Ida shrugs. "I don't know what she was expecting, but none of us have chosen the same specialities as each other. We tend to stay active for about thirty or forty years, until slowdown really starts to hit, then bam! Reset. Iteration 3 was the one to discover that Atlantis stored the brain states of anyone who died within her walls, as well as the viability cut-off limit. My speciality is in temporal physics, and I managed to beat the cut-off, beat her, by using a focussed tachyon beam to read a pattern in the past, when it was still viable." She smiles triumphantly. "Hence you."

"Thank you."

It's difficult to find a brilliant psychologist in her semi-crazed patina. I can't help wondering how much is just the different paths she took, and how much is the 'optimisation' that she's hardwired into herself.

"Anyway, the important thing is that I can look up Iteration 1's modifications. I'm sure that your methods were good for their time, but you can do so much better now. You shouldn't need configurable implants like mine - cybernetics and biomods can allow far more effectively gather and analyse data, and with the right implants and consent, you can even enter someone else's head. Why bother theorising, when you can know?"

"I'll certainly consider it."

"Do so. Who knows how long before the slowdown hits you too?" She gets to her feet, then looks back at me. "You get it now, don't you? You never have all the time in the world. It's all just an illusion."

My heart aches for her, and I nod. "Thank you for stopping by."

She nods. "Don't mention it. It was worth it. I needed to get some readings off you anyway," she says, and then she's out of the room and off, leaving me behind.

It isn't until afterwards that I realise that I never asked her what iteration she is.

 

**Three months in:**

There's a knock at my office door, and the sheer unexpected physicality surprises me for a moment.

No one knocks here.

It just doesn't appear to be done.

Nonetheless, I don't want to be rude, so I send out an impulse to open the door.

To reveal a Wraith drone standing on the other side.

Oh, I think. That would explain the knocking. The lack of an Ancient gene.

He stands there silently for a moment.

"Can I help you?" I ask.

In response, he advances towards me until he's standing just in front of my desk. "People talk to you," he says. "When they have problems."

I suppress an internal sigh.

It's true. Despite the fact that there was obviously a mechanism before I turned up, word has somehow gotten out about what I used to do back in the day, and people have started coming to me, in dribs and drabs.

It's a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, it does allow me a view of Atlantean society, and the changes that technology has wrought, that I probably wouldn't have otherwise got.

On the other, what it's mostly shown me is that people, or at least the problems they feel comfortable sharing with me, have stayed remarkably similar in many ways over the centuries.

Still, regardless, I have yet to find it within myself to start turning them away.

And, now, apparently a wraith has washed up on my doorstep. Whilst doubtless an unparalleled research opportunity, I can't help feeling more than a little unprepared to help an alien species in this way.

"Please, sit down," I say, indicating a chair. "What would you like me to call you?"

He shrugs. "Does it matter?"

I nod slowly. "So, what would you like to talk to me about?" I ask.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

I'm just about to give up, and ask again, possibly in a different fashion, he finally says. "I'm in a relationship with a human."

Well, that probably explains what he's doing here.

Humans and wraiths having relations, of one kind or another, is not exactly unknown, even in my limited experience.

Atlantis is a small city, and fresh dating prospects for a human probably get fairly slim after a century or so.

And the wraith, regardless of their differences, have come to greatly resemble their one-time prey over time.

"I see," I say. "Is it going well?"

This, at least, is a script that I know well.

During the first year of Atlantis, keeping relationships under incredible stress from exploding messily had been a major part of my duties.

"I feed on him. During sex."

It's a scary visual image I've done my best to avoid, ever since hearing about the practice.

And it's a prejudice that I'm going to have to confront, especially now.

With a bit of effort, I manage to maintain my unbroken record, and clear my throat.

"Is he having problems with that side of things?"

"No." The wraith is quiet for a moment. "It makes me feel differently towards him. Like he's prey," he says, and there's something that might be distaste or even distress in his voice.

"And you don't like that?" I ask, trying to confirm my impression.

"No." Definite.

"Have you talked to him about this?"

"He likes the feeling," he says, wearing an expression that I can only guess is the wraith equivalent of uncertainty.

"Maybe you should," I say gently. "There might be some kind of compromise you can bother come to."

He nods slowly, and we talk for a little longer.

I manage to see him out, before I collapse on the floor, shoving my hand into my mouth, trying to stifle the laughter.

I should not be finding this funny.

I really shouldn't.

But, somehow, I've managed to become relationship counsellor to a wraith.

Who was having performance issues with his feeding.

I shake my head to myself.

A few months ago, my time, I couldn't have even imagined having to deal with this kind of problem.

It's times like this when I really wish that I could share some details with Elizabeth.

And I shouldn't be finding this funny.

But, as I collapse into giggles, regardless of my best efforts, I really do.

 

**Eight months in:**

"Have you managed to start sleeping yet?" I ask.

Clear, unreddened eyes meet mine, but he shakes his head.

Biological tinkering may have removed much of the physical need for sleep, but, without a lot more hacking, the human mind still needs periods of downtime.

"I can't..." he says, trailing off, before picking up the thread again. "I just keep on wondering, what if it was something that I did? What if it's something that I *didn't* do."

We arrived at a new galaxy a little over two months ago, and with that survey teams have started out again, finding new sights and new wonders.

"Have you spoken to the other surviving members of your team yet?"

And with the new galaxy comes new dangers.

He nods hesitantly.

The human members of the expedition are all backed up. If the worst happens - and it very rarely does - they'll be resuscitated in Atlantis, just missing a few days.

"Have you thought that it's likely they are going through the same kinds of thoughts, the same kind of recriminations?"

The wraith, on the other hand, are not. The queen has refused to allow even research into the subject, saying that it will lead to the hive becoming stagnant.

"They shouldn't," he says, almost shouting. "I was the most experienced scout. If anyone should have spotted..."

The wraith still go, of course. Both for their enhanced physical skills and talent at healing, as well as what seems to be a cultural fervour for exploration and being the first in.

"I imagine they might have similar things to say themselves."

And sometimes, this leads to losses.

I let the sentence trail, but he doesn't seem inclined to pick it up.

The wraith themselves deal with death fairly well. According to them, something of each wraith stays with the hive. As long as it survives, so do all who have gone before.

"Look, Kate, you know what I've requested," he says, eventually.

Sometimes the humans, now unused to death, fair much less well.

I nod, acknowledging his point. "And you know why Tia asked you to come to me."

There is, of course, another aspect to the human form of immortality. Sometimes, if someone is gone for long enough, they are declared dead, and resuscitated from their last copy. It's not unknown, if still somewhat embarrassing, for waylaid explorers to return after that.

"I just want to go to sleep for a while. Let my alter become active," he says, looking down at the ground tiredly.

Doubles are called alters. Atlantis has, in general, only enough resources to sustain one alter at once. So one is put to sleep, until an agreed upon event like the active dies. Then the alter is made active

"Your team mates will still be dead when you wake up. And you'll feel just the same."

Turn and turn about.

He laughs. "Yes. But I'm making the request for the third time. Tia can't refuse me now."

There is a waiting period before a switch, in cases of intense emotion. But the third request over at least a three week period must be honoured.

I nod. "I'll tell her," I say.

And one thing hasn't changed over the centuries.

One thing hasn't changed at all.

Some you win.

Some you lose.

 

**One year in (exactly):**

"Is it safe to come in yet?" Elizabeth calls from the bedroom.

I give the pot on the stove one more stir, and look around. "Almost," I call, as I fumble for the matches, and light the remaining tallow candles.

The light they cast is yellow and flickering and worth all the effort that I spent persuading people to trade for them.

As well as all the raised eyebrows I suffered when I gave them the full shopping list.

"Come in," I call.

A few seconds later, the curtain pinned over the doorway moves, and Elizabeth enters the room.

For a moment, all I can do is look, and appreciate.

A dark green dress that flatters her figure to perfection draws my eyes up, and a golden necklace circling her throat pulls them down again.

God, she's...

She's...

*Exquisite.*

And from the dark and hungry look in her eyes, my clothes are inspiring a similar effect in her.

It's just as well. Wearing these clothes is certainly itchy enough.

"Dinner looks..." she begins in a low voice. Then she sniffs. "Burning."

I swear, and hop back into the kitchen.

Apparently, my cooking skills have dramatically suffered from the year's disuse.

Luckily, the only casualties are a few root vegetables that I happily consign to the bin.

The centrepiece and the remaining vegetables are merely a little crispy.

Crispy can be good.

Maybe.

At least my serving skills still seem to be intact, allowing me to hang on to some shreds of my dignity.

Elizabeth looks at me fondly from her place at the table as I re-enter the living room, plates held high.

"You didn't have to go to all this trouble," she tells me.

"I really did," I say honestly.

In this new Atlantis, everything can be made to perfection. Clothes always fit perfectly, and even food is produced, far better than anyone could do by hand.

Nothing takes any effort.

It's all seamless.

It probably says something about my Luddite tendencies that this has been a constant pressure just under my skin, growing and growing and growing over the months we've been here.

Quite frankly, it's started to drive me a little mad.

Elizabeth doesn't quite share my problems, but she's kind enough to indulge me on this, our anniversary of arriving here.

And, besides, there are... compensations.

She trails a fingernail down my wrist as I pour her a glass of wine, making my breath hitch and almost causing me to spill it everywhere.

I quickly place the bottle on the table, then lean forward, kissing her deeply.

Her scent, new to here, this body, but learned again, helps stabilise me.

"Dinner first," I mumble as I draw myself away with difficulty.

She's still panting slightly, flushed, but it only takes her a moment to recover enough to smile sardonically. "I don't believe I was the one to slip."

"This time. And if you wouldn't look so tempting..." I say, almost purring, and just manage to miss putting my hand straight in the food.

Tonight... tonight is really not my night.

Though it might be later, I can't help thinking as I sneak another glance towards her.

Dinner, though. Dinner first.

It's certainly taken me enough effort to arrange.

As much of this as I could manage is natural, real, traded for.

The food, the wine, even our clothes and the settings.

It may just be a placebo.

But placebos can work.

The food may be far from perfect, the wine may have a little vinegar in it, but it's all real.

Far more real than anything else in this city.

And it settles me, centres me.

Though, granted, the fact that Elizabeth seems determined to fiddle with her neckline, apparently trying to find a way for her dress to settle comfortably, just serves to draw my attention to her neck.

Her slim, elegant neck.

"I'm finished," I announce suddenly.

Elizabeth arches an eyebrow and looks inordinately amused. "Are you sure? You're only half done."

"I'm sure," I say, stand up and take hold her of her hand.

"Oh my, Dr Heightmeyer," she drawls, not moving an inch. "Who knew you could be so commanding?"

And now she's just being difficult.

"This dress," I say as I duck into her to run my lips over that neck that has been teasing me all evening. "Has got to go."

"Your wish," she breathes as she throws her head backwards, "Is my command."

 

And, afterwards, as I lie twined around her, my mind slowly running down, I make a new resolution.

Tomorrow, I'm going to go through that list Ida sent me all those months ago.

We're in the future now.

And I think it's time that I started making my own accommodations.


End file.
